Does a canyon get more grand than this?

Saturday, 11 July, 2015

Well, first with the expectations, then the reality.  I've never been to the Grand Canyon, so I was expecting a gigantic hole in the ground, with a path along the edge to go down into the canyon, a railing along the edge that you walk up to and say "wow!", look a bit, then take your photos.  We went to the Northern Rim that we had heard was better since we weren't camping or riding down to the bottom.   On the North Rim, I didn't see any path leading into the canyon.  There was a nice lodge with cabins and many hiking trails with visions of the canyon, but no paths down into it.  Then, while it is a really big hole in the ground, it is very long, but there are many rock formations in the middle of it too--I expected the river and a fairly flat valley.  Also, as we drove to the Grand Canyon and hiked, it was full of many trees--mostly pine, with aspen and oak  mixed in with the arid (desert-like) plants.  Very pretty, but I just wasn't expecting that!

Now that the children are older, we can hike at our own pace on some of the hiking paths where we are taking a lot of photos.  Quite often we walk together or in pairs or groups, but if one person wants to sit and contemplate the view or try to take fancy photos, the others can go on.  We couldn't do that when the children were younger--we all had to wait until everyone was ready and had to stay together (and hold onto the waist of the children's pants when they tried to go out too far).  

First, we went to Bright Angel Point--the main go-to viewing place, including the lodge and visitor's center.  We hiked out to the Point, then on the Kaibab Trail.  Nice trails--some flat parts with only moderately steep hills and lots of trees.  (I like the trees).

Bright Angel Point trail

Kaibab Trail

If you look carefully, there's a bee pollinating this woodland flower

Selfie

Shelby, the tree-hugger

We watched a PBS (public television) special once on old-time lodges in the national parks.  They were mostly built in the 20s and are beautiful.  This one was no exception.  While not as grand as others (such as the Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone), it was bigger than life and made you want to stay there!  When you stay there, they don't have rooms in the main lodge building.  The main lodge has several restaurants, check-in, a post office, gift shop, area with a stage, lounges, and big porches looking over the canyon.  There are two types of cabins.  Cute ones with little front porches and rocking chairs and more plain ones.  As we were walking past the more posh ones, I saw a room service cart in front of one and decided to take a peek.  The man preparing the room looked surprised to see me, so I explained that I just wanted to take a peek.  He was so cute!!  He went into full showmanship mode, giving me a "tour" and talking about how nice it is--he even turned on the gas fireplace for me!  It had a main room with desk and two double beds, then a little hallway with a bathroom and what he called a "ladies room" (!)  which had a vanity, iron/ironing board, and a little fridge.  And a small table to two chairs in front of the fireplace in the main room.  As well as the rocking chairs on the porch and the porch of this one looked out over the grand canyon!  There was also a door that led into the adjoining unit that the man said could be used by the couple for the children if they wanted some privacy from them for a night--there were even some bunk beds in the other one.

The main dining hall

reception

A light fixture in the lounge

Main entrance to the lodge 

One of the lounges

A cabin (note the cute rocking chairs on the porch)

After that, we had our lunch (we bought more fruit and granola bars from the Safeway across the street after our hotel breakfast) overlooking the canyon, then drove half an hour to the Cape Royal trail.  This trail was paved (the others were dirt covered with pine needles), which was weird, but we saw more of the eastern arm of the canyon.  The North rim is taller that the South Rim and because of the snow and weather, the slope is more gradual.  When the snowfall melts and when rain falls, it flows down into the canyon, When there is rain on the South Rim, it flows to the south as well, but that is out of the canyon so there is less erosion and the sides are steeper.  (That was your geology lesson for today!).

After hiking at Cape Royal, we headed back toward Page, but stopped at Horseshoe Canyon just outside of Page to see the sunset (evidently it's a cool thing).  This canyon (again carved by the Colorado River just like the Grand Canyon) has a 270 degree turn in it, which is cool to see.  At the top of the canyon, watching the sunset, though was a strong wind blowing sand which wasn't so cool. Pretty sunset.  We saw one guy with the most techie tripod ever--it had a gauge for figuring out angles (like a surveyor uses) and had buttons you pushed to adjust it with it's motor.  Randy had some tripod envy going on!

From Cape Royal Trail

Angel Window

Horseshoe Canyon, near Page

Then back into town for a late fast-food dinner before going back to the hotel to shower off the sand which was all over our skin, in our sandals, and Randy even found some in his pockets.

I've been to the desert on a horse with no name . . .

Friday, 10 July, 2015

Family photo at the Mesa Arch

This morning, while we were checking the room to make sure we remembered everything, Shelby pulled out a book in the bedside table--the Book of Mormon (in addition to the Bible).  We checked our hotel room here in Arizona--no Book of Mormon.  Only in Utah!  :)

First thing, we went to Canyonlands NP.  Randy checked and the northern entrance seemed to be more of what we wanted:  short hikes to see things.  At the southern entrance, you evidently drive in and park, then hike from there.  We saw another arch--the Mesa Arch and lots of interesting rock formations.  There are signs all over (as there were at the Arches NP) about staying on the path.  You are allowed to step off if you walk on the slip rock (which is all over).  The reason is the fragile soil.  It has a biologic soil crust, which means it has little ridges to trap seeds and microorganisms to feed those seeds and other plants.  If you step on the soil, you can ruin the ability of the soil to sustain life. And just an interesting bit, the reason the rocks are called slip rocks is because horses with metal horseshoes would slip on them when they were wet.

Shelby being contemplative

The white stripe down the middle is from the mining roads--it may take decades for the land to recover

My first try at a panoramic photo

My second try!

Joshua

Joshua trying to be close to Shelby and Shelby not wanting to be close to him.

Prickly Pear cactus

Mesa Arch

flower in the desert--maybe a variety of digitalis or bellflower?

Mesa arch

The view through the arch.

One of many cairns--some are from the park service to mark the trail and some are just started by someone else, but all are added to freely by other hikers.

This is a juniper bush.  The needles feel like plastic and it has little berries.  Many of the small bushes here have very tough, plastic-feeling needles or leaves--I assume to store water.

Edge of a canyon

The trunk of this tree was twisted by the wind up here.

Another cairn--this made by hikers.

At one time, Randy asked a couple attempting a selfie on the edge of a cliff if they'd like him to take their photo and they declined saying that they were trying to do a selfie.  It made me think about a few articles I've read about our current society being so screen-centered that our young adults aren't learning social and interactional skills.  Then we also have these same people buying sticks to be able to take photos of themselves that they could easily ask someone else to take (I ask people all the time).  Not that we shouldn't take selfies--they are fun and immediate; but when we are on the edge of a really deep canyon or need a stick to get a proper distance for a better photo--why??  Talk to other people!  We meet people by taking photos of each other--even today we met two young women from just outside Paris here on holiday.  Very few people will refuse.  One man yesterday acted annoyed, but when I said that we would then get out of his way (he appeared to be waiting for us to finish so that he could take a photo without us in it), he then agreed and proceeded to take three shots--even squatting down to get a better one!  And he smiled when I said that we would now get out of his way.
Canyonlands was nice, but I think I liked Arches better.  There were many hikes we wanted to go on but couldn't.  We then drove into Arizona and through Monument Valley.  We stopped to take photos of the part of the road that is in many movies--including Forrest Gump (remember when he was running across the country and was going through Arizona?--this is where it was filmed.)  The corner of Arizona on the northeast is the Navajo Nation, there were a lot of roadside stands selling Navajo jewelry.  There are no large towns in this area of Arizona.  We stopped in the small town of Monticello and found a tiny park (Pioneer Park) that is one lot wide with grass, a little gazebo, a picnic bench, and a small flower garden.  It is fenced on three sides with an arch on the final side that said Pioneer Park.  Perfect little park to have our picnic lunch:  leftover pizza and breadsticks (from last night kept in the cooler), protein granola bars, grapes and oranges, and lemonade.  The weather was very hot while we were hiking, by the time we got to Monticello the breeze was quite cool.  Where we are now is comfortable, even at night. The scenery from Moab to Page was pretty, but mostly the same.

The Forrest Gump road.

The rock structures near the road.

Looking forward to the Grand Canyon tomorrow.  We had hoped to see Antelope Canyon too (which you need to reserve a tour for), but we are three hours from the Grand Canyon, so there and back as well as time there will take up the whole day.  We'll stop at the grocery store across the street for some food for lunch tomorrow--probably won't find a cute place like to today, though!